Thursday, August 4, 2016

The gospel of Luke says that the Lord Jesus rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit (Luke 10:21). The blessed Savior understood the beauty and glory of God the Spirit. He enjoyed full and sweet communion with the everlasting Comforter. How can believers find consolation from the third Person of the Triune Godhead? This essay provides 10 towering truths to bless the believer's soul.

The Holy Spirit...

Is FULLY DIVINE IN BEAUTY, ESSENCE, & in ATTRIBUTESThe Bible refers to the Holy Spirit with the same attributes as the Father and the Son. The Spirit is a Person which indicates that He enjoys the features of personhood: intellect, wisdom, emotions, communicative abilities. The Spirit, as God, is gloriously perfect in beauty and in His essence and in all the divine attributes of Godhood that He perfectly, everlastingly and wondrously enjoys.

Is a COMFORTERIn tragic times of pain and confusing seasons of despair, the Holy Spirit comforts the believer’s soul. The Spirit of God is the ultimate Comforter who comforts the weak, the downcast, the feeble, the dying, and the suffering. He, as God, knows how to perfectly and unfailingly come alongside of His people for grace, joy, strengthening, and refreshment.

Is the SPIRIT OF HOLINESSThe Bible refers to this blessed Person of the Godhead as the Spirit of holiness. He is the Holy Spirit for He in His essence is wholly other, different, separate from sin. He is set apart from the common and profane. Indeed, He is Himself holy and He is the Spirit who fellowships with holiness. He produces holiness. He conforms justified sinners more and more into the holy image and likeness of Jesus Christ. God hones and shapes His people into holiness.

Is TRUTHGod hates lying. He abhors deception and falsehood. The reason why truth is so good and lying is so bad is because God’s very nature is perfect truth and all faithfulness. The Spirit of God radiates perfect truth without end. He is the Spirit of truth. He is the Spirit who provided the Word of Truth, the Bible. He speaks Truth through His written Word and He guides all true believers into the Truth. Never is there an error or falsehood with God. He is dependable.

Is SPEAKING THRU HIS WORDThe Holy Spirit as a Person has all the communicative powers of personhood. He thinks and He has intellect. He is able to craft and form clear communication. And thus He has! He has carried along the hands of human instruments so that no prophecy of Scripture ever came about by men’s own ingenuities but rather as the Spirit of God carried them the human penmen wrote precisely what God intended. The Spirit speaks ultimately through His written Word.

Is the CONVERTER OF SOULSNone can convert except God. None can raise the dead save God. None can convert and change a leper’s spots but the Almighty One who created him. It is the Spirit who gives life. The Spirit draws sinners to the Father. The Spirit, by His own power and by His own ability and for God’s own glory, gives life and converts souls to Christ. None can be born from above except the Spirit of God blow the divine, supernatural breath upon him to give life so that he may repent and believe the gospel to be saved. The Spirit must initiate salvation by giving life to the soul which always and immediately results in repentance and faith.

Is the SANCTIFIER OF THE ELECTGod the Spirit is holy and thus makes God’s people holy. God has chosen believers for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. Believers do not magically muster up enough willpower to make themselves holy. It is God who works in and through believers to sanctify them as they cheerfully place themselves within the means of grace. God grows and sanctifies and purifies all the Redeemed. The Spirit sanctifies all the saved.

Is the SECURER OF PERMANENT REDEMPTIONTrue believers revel in eternal hope that can not fail. Everlasting heaven and bliss with Christ and fellowship with God is a future certainty for every child of the King. This hope does not -- indeed, it can not -- fail because the love of God has been poured profusely into believers’ hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given as the deposit and guarantee. Thus, no saved sinner can ever lose his salvation. God the Spirit, by almighty, infinite, supernatural, undefeatable power secures and keeps all whom the Father elected and the Son purchased for glory. None are, nor could be, lost!

Is GLORIFYING CHRISTThe Spirit has a primary purpose in His supernatural ministry and that is to point to Jesus Christ. Indeed, the Spirit glorifies Christ and discloses what is Christ’s to His people. The Spirit’s primary aim is to exalt the supremacy of Christ, convert the redeemed of Christ, and carry to heaven all the souls propitiated by the Lamb’s blood. The Spirit aids and assists the believer in living for Christ, loving Christ, speaking of Christ, rejoicing in Christ and worshiping Christ. The Spirit does not seek to draw attention to Himself but humbly points all men to Christ the Savior.

Is the CAUSE OF INDOMITABLE JOYThe kingdom of God consists of joy in the Holy Spirit. Christ rejoiced in the Spirit. The Bible intimates that the triune God rejoices in each other so that every member loves, delights in, and finds sweet communion with each other. And it is the Spirit of God, the third member of the Godhead, who provides this joy for those who have been snatched from the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. This kingdom is not one of anguish and joylessness but rather, by the Spirit’s enabling, it is a kingdom of unending and undiminishing joy.